"Certainly," responded Nattie, and added, "I shall be quite rich, for me, in acquaintances soon, if I continue as I have begun. I made a new one on the wire to-day."

"On the--I beg pardon--on the what?" asked Quimby, with visions of tight-ropes flashing through his mind.

"On the wire," repeated Nattie, to whom the phrase was so common, that it never occurred to her as needing any explanation.

"Oh!" said the puzzled Quimby, not at all comprehending, but unwilling to confess his ignorance.

"The worst of it is, I don't know the s.e.x of my new friend, which makes it a little awkward," continued Nattie.

Quimby stared.

"Don't--I beg pardon--don't know her--his--s.e.x?" he repeated, with wide-open eyes.

"No, it was on the wire, you know!" again explained Nattie, privately thinking him unusually stupid; "about seventy miles away. We first quarreled and then had a pleasant talk."

"Talk--seventy miles--" faltered the perplexed Quimby; then brightening, "Oh! I see! a telephone, you know!"

"No indeed!" replied Nattie, laughing at his incomprehensibility. "We don't need telephones. We can talk without--did you not know that? And what is better, no one but those who understand our language can know what we say!"

"Exactly!" answered Quimby, relapsing again into wonder. "Exactly--on the wire!"

"Yes, we talk in a language of dots and dashes, that even Miss Kling might listen to in vain. And do you know," she went on confidentially, "somehow, I am very much interested in my new friend. I wish I knew--its so awkward, as I said--but I really think it's a gentleman!"

"Exactly--exactly so!" responded Quimby, somewhat dejectedly. And during the remainder of their walk he was very much hara.s.sed in his mind over this interest Nattie confessed in her new friend--"on the wire,"--who _would_ appear as a tight-rope performer to his perturbed imagination.

And he felt in his inmost heart that it would be a great relief to his mind if this mysterious person should prove a lady, even though, if a gentleman, he _was_ many miles away. For Quimby, with all his obtusity, had an inkling of the power of mystery, and was already far enough on the road to love to be jealous.

Of these thoughts Nattie was of course wholly unaware, and chatted gayly, now of the distant "C" and now of the coming Miss Archer, to her somewhat abstracted, but always devoted companion.

CHAPTER III.

VISIBLE AND INVISIBLE FRIENDS.

With perhaps one or two less frowns than usual at the destiny that compelled her to forego any morning naps, and be up and stirring at the early hour of six o'clock, Nattie arose next morning, aware of a more than accustomed willingness to go to the office. And immediately on her arrival there, she opened the key, and said, without calling, just to ascertain if her far-away acquaintance would notice it,--

"G. M. (good morning) C!"

Apparently "C" had his or her ears on the alert, for immediately came the response,

"G. M., my dear!"

A form of expression rather familiar for so short an acquaintance, that is, supposing "C" to be a gentleman. "But then, people talk for the sake of talking, and never say what they mean on the wire," thought Nattie.

Besides, did not the distance in any case annul the familiarity?

Therefore, without taking offense, even without comment, she asked:

"Are we to get along to-day without quarreling?"

"Oh! it is you, is it, 'N'?" responded "C," "I thought so, but wasn't quite sure. Yes, you, may 'break' at every word, and I will still be amiable."

"I should be afraid to put you to the test," replied Nattie, with a laugh.

"Do you then think me such a hopelessly ill-natured fellow?" inquired "C."

"Fellow!" triumphantly repeated Nattie. "Be careful, or you will betray yourself!"

"Ha, ha!" laughed "C." "Stupid enough of me, wasn't it? But it only proves the old adage about giving a man rope enough to hang himself."

"Don't mention old adages, for I detest them!" said Nattie. "Especially that one about the early bird and the worm. But I fear, as a _mys_tery, you are not a success, _Mr._ 'C'."

"A very bad attempt at a pun," said "C." "I trust, however, you will not desert me, now your curiosity is satisfied, Miss 'N.'?"

"Don't be in such a hurry to _miss_ me. I have said nothing yet to give you that right," Nattie replied.

"Nevertheless, it's utterly impossible not to miss you. I missed you last night after you had gone home, for instance. "But _you_, a great, hulking fellow! No, indeed! In my mind's eye--"

But what was in "C's" mind's eye did not just then appear, for at this interesting point some one at Nattie's window, saying. "I would like to send a message," obliged her reluctantly to interrupt him with,

"Excuse me a moment, a customer is waiting."

She then turned as much of her attention as she could separate from "C"

to the customer, enabled, perhaps, to answer the volley of miscellaneous questions poured upon her with unusual affability, on account of the settlement--and in the right direction!--of that vexed question of "C's"

s.e.x.

But she could not help thinking, as she glanced at the message finally written, and handed to her that had the writer attended a little more to the spelling-book, and a little less to the acc.u.mulation of diamond rings, it might have been a very wise proceeding. But perhaps

"Meat me at the train," was sufficiently intelligible for all purposes.

"What was it about your mind's eye?" Nattie asked over the wire, at the first opportunity.

"C" was again on the alert, without being called, for the answer came, after a moment, just long enough for him to cross the room, perhaps.

"As I was saying, in the eye aforesaid, me thinks I see a tall slim young lady with blue eyes and light hair, and dimples that come into her cheeks when I stupidly betray my s.e.x."

As "C" said this, Nattie glanced into the gla.s.s just over her head at the reflection of her face. A face whose expression was its charm; that never could be called pretty, but that nevertheless suggested a possibility--only a possibility, of being handsome. For there is a vast difference between pretty and handsome. Pretty people seldom know very much; but to be handsome, a person must have brains; an inner as well as an outer beauty.

"How fortunate it is you are not near enough to be disenchanted!" Nattie replied to "C." "Your mind's eye is very unreliable. Tall! why, I'm only five feet! never was guilty of a dimple, and my eyes are of some dreadfully nondescript color."

"If you are only five feet, you never can look down on me, which is a great consolation," "C" responded. "And for the rest imagination will clothe the unseen with all possible beauty and grace."

"I am sure I am perfectly willing you should imagine me as beautiful as you please," replied Nattie, "As long as we don't come face to face, which in all probability we never shall, you will not know how different from the real was the ideal."

"Please don't discourage me so soon, for I hope sometime we may clasp hands bodily as we do now spiritually, on the wire--for we do, don't we?" said "C" a.s.serting before he questioned.

"Certainly--here is mine, spiritually!" responded Nattie, without the least hesitation, as she thought, of the miles of safe distance between.

"Now may I ask--"